


The Inquisition of Ryn Lavellan

by KaerWrites



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Retelling, M/M, Tags to come as needed, canon novelization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25389769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaerWrites/pseuds/KaerWrites
Summary: Everyone's brother, everyone's son. Ryn Lavellan thought he could be content with his lot within his clan, until extraordinary circumstances leave the world trembling, and push him to people and places beyond imagining.Canon compliant novelization/retelling of the events of Inquisition.
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 53
Kudos: 48





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress, so please be prepared to be patient with me. I've been wanting to work out Ryn's canon story for quite some time, and I love retelling canon. I hope it's a journey others can enjoy with me.

As the cool of the morning began to give way to the Free Marches’ sticky late summer heat, the hunter put his bow to the side and left the game trail he’d spent the morning stalking in favor of a shady riverside hideaway and a few hours alone with a new book.

It was a steep climb up the bank to the spot he had scouted, where a mossy floor would provide him comfort and low branches offered privacy should anyone seek him out, though the likelihood of being disturbed was slim. Ryn Lavellan was a son of the clan – everyone’s brother, everyone’s son – and yet he was a solitary creature all the same. His friendships and love affairs had never found a deep soul’s connection, and thus were never deeply felt by either party, and he had no blood relations to claim his time. He was accepted, yet apart, and content with that.

Ryn’s place was to serve the clan that had raised him, to repay the kindness shown an orphaned toddler with no hope on his own. He didn’t need strong intimate bonds to understand the duty that circumstance had left him with.

His calloused fingertips slid along the crisp edges of the paper. He lifted the book to inhale its scent. Settling back against the trunk of the tree, he propped his bare feet up on an upraised root, and smiled to himself as he opened the tome for the first time. A breeze stirred his hair, and the river chattered its song. He had lures set along the game trail, so he would not return to his people empty handed. He had time.

If this was the life the gods had assigned to him, it was not a bad one. If once Ryn might have expected, or looked for, or wanted more, he had since learned better. His clan was peaceful – that kept them safe. His arrows flew true – that helped keep them fed. After three decades of life, he had learned that he could be content with the quiet, thankful for predictability. Adventures were for characters in stories.

\--

Ryn stayed longer than he’d meant to, lingering in the shade as the day grew hotter around him, engrossed in the tales presented by his favorite author. The book had been a fortunate find; few merchants thought to bring such things when visiting the Dalish, and so Ryn had to take what he could get.

Ryn bought or traded for books every chance he got. His small aravel was full of histories and dramas, plays, romances, anthologies, tragedies, even the odd recipe book. To his people, he was a bit eccentric; the only knowledge worth collecting and preserving was that which pertained to the People. Very little of Ryn’s personal library met that specification.

This find had been a rare and special treat, even if the merchant who had traded him for it had overcharged, then claimed that its contents were overblown lies. “Tethras is a sensationalist hip-deep in the refuse heap,” he’d said. He still accepted Ryn’s furs in trade, whatever his thoughts on the elf’s tastes in literature.

Ryn had meant to make this treat last, to parcel it out, one page at a time, over days, maybe weeks.

Then he found himself turning the last page, and when he looked up, blinking, brought jarringly and unexpectedly back to reality, the shadows were stretching themselves out across the landscape, and his rear end was very, very numb.

\--

Enough of Ryn’s traps were full to assuage any guilt over a wasted afternoon, thanks to Andruil’s grace, and Ryn was thankful that his return to the aravels was not empty-handed, even if it was late.

Night had nearly fallen by the time he returned. Some of the children ran forward to greet him, to tug on his arms and try to swing on his back.

“You missed it!” one said, nearly toppling him as she barreled into his legs. “We had a messenger from another clan!”

“ _Ir abelas, da’len_ , no wonder you’re all so – ung! – wound up.” Carefully, he maneuvered the young one who had just head-butted his sternum away from doing to again. He let his eyes scan the camp. “Have they left already?” he asked, seeing no signs of feasting or celebration.

“She’s taking the news north,”another young one answered.

“The Keeper pulled a whole bunch of people into her aravel,” another said, trying to swing from his arm. “The elder went in, Master Iso, the First _and_ Second, four of the hunters, Master Ceris…”

“You’re supposed to go, too!” the first one said.

“Me?” that did give him pause.

Ryn eventually managed to disentangle himself, entrusting the oldest two with the line of pheasants and rabbits his traps had caught, with strict instructions on what was to be done with them.

“Do not try to clean them yourself,” he instructed, because he had learned the hard way that if he wasn’t explicit he came to regret the outcome. Then he let himself into the Keeper’s aravel.

As the children had said, there were already almost a dozen elves already crammed within. The First and Second, the clan’s four best hunters, Master Iso, their craftsman, Master Ceris, who trained the hunters, the Elder, the Keeper –

And now Ryn, all eyes turning on him as his pack hit the door upon entering.

“You were out late, _da’len_ ,” the Keeper greeted, and he felt like a child again, caught following the hunters on a scouting party he was far too young for.

“It seems I’ve missed some excitement,” Ryn agreed.

“Settle in,” Master Ceris confirmed. “You’ll be here a while.”

There was more room between the First and the Second, who were not fond of each other. Even so, Ryn knew better than to take it, and settled himself instead with the other hunters, who made as much room for him as could be spared.

They filled him in. Before the arguing began again, he understood.

\--

Of course, Lavellan had been aware of the trouble for some time now; it was part of why they’d lingered in the Free Marches for so long, instead of moving south again, though much of the trouble had occurred as near as Kirkwall – as Ryn had just read. The issues between the mages and the templars had been on the verge of boiling over for longer than anyone could remember, and it was only natural it dissolve into all-out war.

The results of the conflict had concerned the Keeper for quite some time. Chaos would have its effects felt even by the Dalish in time, if they failed to take the necessary precautions. Should the templars prove victorious, the backlash against apostates would prove brutal, and likely lead to increased diligence in hunting them. Dalish clans had hardly been an exception before, but after…

And if, instead, it was the mages who won the day, what then? Lavellan had wandered close enough to Tevinter – had interacted with enough clans that braved its borders – to have some sense of what could be at risk under a second magisterium.

“We will not be blindsided by the aftershocks of history,” Keeper Deshanna said, her shawls drawn regally about herself, her expression set. Whatever discussion she and the elder had had before they’d called in the others, it was clear that she was set on the path she had chosen for her people. “Whatever comes of this Conclave, we must have time to decide and prepare our course, before that chance it taken from us.”

There were a few murmurs. Ryn shared a glance with some of the other hunters. There was a restlessness, suddenly, in the araval.

“We will send one of you to the Conclave,” the Keeper said. “To walk among the shams and report back on the proceedings. We want…”

She was still speaking, but Ryn no longer heard her. His ears were ringing. His body felt suddenly aflame. What mere hours ago had felt like contentment had transformed itself into restlessness, longing, as something long-thought dead within him awoke with a sudden, howling hunger.

\--

To Ryn, it should have been an easy decision. He didn’t know why the Keeper allowed the clan to spend so much time debating it. Two days had passed. He could not sleep.

“Easy, is it, _da’len_?” she asked, when he at last forced himself to go to her. “Please, explain what I am missing.”

The Keeper sounded amused, rather than offended, and Ryn was grateful for that, at least. It had taken everything in him to make himself speak up, to clamp down on his own desires in order to think of what was in the clan’s best interests. The sooner things were settled, the sooner he would have peace again, and stop daydreaming of things that only served his own interests.

 _“Ir abelas_ , Keeper,” Ryn said. “I know it’s late, and it isn’t my place.”

“I’ve encouraged the clan to speak their minds freely on the matter,” she said. “What has been remarkable is how silent _you’ve_ been.”

“I didn’t want to speak over wiser minds,” Ryn said. And a part of him had hoped that if he stayed silent, if no one thought of things the way he had, that there was a chance he could be the one chosen. He knew that was something to be ashamed of. He knew there were better choices.

“So humble!” the Keeper said, which made him more ashamed for holding himself back. “Surely as one of the names being considered, your opinion should bear some weight itself.”

“That…ah, is exactly why I’ve been reluctant to give it,” he admitted. “I can come back tomorrow, if you are able to make time for me. So long as we can speak in private.” He truly hadn’t realized how late it was until the Keeper had come to the aravel’s entrance dressed for sleep. Only then had he thought to check the moons’ position. When he had finally convinced himself to speak up, he had wanted to see it done before he could change his mind. He could not trust himself otherwise. “It was thoughtless of me to intrude upon your rest.”

She laughed. “Your intrusion, as you call it, only reminds me of how important your words are to you, _da’len_ ,” she said warmly. “I recall a child who would weep quietly in his bed, rather than ask comfort after a nightmare, no matter whose aravel he had come to rest in.”

“I don’t like to be a bother,” Ryn said. The clan had raised him as a whole, passing him from family to family so that the burden of an extra mouth was never left to one singular unit. He had never spent more than one consecutive week with a family. He was everyone’s brother, everyone’s son. He had never been told that his presence was a burden, but he had been aware, nonetheless. Why else raise him in such a way, so that responsibility could be shared? He had been old enough to understand, and be grateful. He tried not to make trouble, tried not to give anyone cause to regret or begrudge the trouble gone to on his behalf. He had earned his vallaslin at his earliest possible opportunity, moved into his own aravel by fifteen, and had spent the years since trying to repay the kindness he had been shown.

The Keeper laughed, gently, at his words. She reached out and briefly cupped the back of his head, then stepped back and gestured him into the aravel.

Ryn had just passed his thirtieth summer, but he still felt like a child when he sat at Keeper Deshanna’s scarred little table. She still hummed as she putted around her tidy kitchen preparing tea. As a boy, Ryn had met with her once a week so that she could make sure he was happy, check that his emotional and educational needs were being met. And she had given him the first precious books in his collection.

Finally, Deshanna sat, and placed a mug of honeyed mint tea before him, the steam thick and fragrant. Ryn wrapped his fingers around the warm clay mug, and he felt the fingerprints of whoever it was who had pressed it into being, long before his birth, and the words he had come to say were suddenly less of a burden to put forth.

“I want to withdraw my name from consideration,” Ryn said. “The clan should send Rellana to the Conclave.”

The Keeper, lowering herself into her chair, paused. “Oh?” she asked.

Ryn pressed his fingers into the fingerprints again. He felt the ridges and dents shaped by hands he had never known, but hands that had nonetheless touched his life in ways he could not imagine.

The Keeper’s dishes had been hand made by someone in the clan so many generations ago that their name, like much of the People’s history, had been lost. But surely the person had impacted the shape and personality of the clan, just as they had the clay they had worked. They had touched the lives of those around them at the time, had influenced those who would come after. Parts of them had lingered through time, down the line to the present, where Ryn now sat in the aravel the Keeper’s parents had carved with their own hands, aware of the fact that the actions they took with the Conclave would impact who clan Lavellan became innumerable generations from now.

“I think your First stands to benefit the most from the experience,” Ryn said, and it was easier than he had feared it would be. “Rellana as she is now has little imagination for life outside her own experience,” he said, as diplomatically as he could. “If she is ever to lead with grace and wisdom, she must first learn it. She must expand her horizons.”

“You don’t think one of your fellow hunters would make a better spy?”

“Any of the hunters would,” Ryn acknowledged. “Rellana does lack subtlety from time to time. And patience. And attention to detail. And…” he stopped, flushing, at the look the Keeper gave him. “I sound like I’m disproving my point,” he said, “But is the amount of detail reported from the Conclave more important than the growth of the future leader of the clan? If Rellana had not learned the skills she needs within the clan, doesn’t she need the opportunity to find them elsewhere? She does not come when we go to trade; she has never so much as spoken to a human, or even laid eyes on a dwarf.” She’d thought the Qunari corpse they’d found when the clan passed outside Kirkwall some years ago had been some strange mutation, but Ryn decided not to drive his point home quite so strongly.

“None of the hunters have such problems.”

“Most of the hunters are too aggressive,” Ryn said. They were a peaceful clan, but that didn’t mean there weren’t incidents from time to time – incidents that often could have been avoided. “Rellana might miss some details, but I doubt that she will poke and prod and try to stir up conflict like someone like Tal would.”

“Neither would you,” Deshanna said softly.

Ryn faltered for a moment. He tried to regain his train of thought, and not to let himself think about how _interesting_ it would be, how exciting, how fun. “If Rellana is to become Keeper one day, she needs to learn how to make tough decisions on her own, how to negotiate with humans, how to keep her head down and her eyes open. She would lead us all into destruction, otherwise. The Conclave may be the opportunity she needs to grow.”

“And so you withdraw your name in support of her.”

Ryn swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “I think it’s the best choice for the clan.”

Deshanna sat back in her chair, stirring her tea. Her eyes were keen. “I would have thought you would be the one most eager to go,” she said.

He wanted to. The longing was so powerful he ached for it.

“Me?” he asked, as if it had not occurred to him.

“We’re fortunate that few of our hunters actively seek conflict with humans,” Deshanna said. “But of them all, only you possess any interest in learning of the world outside this clan. I don’t have to tell you how rare that trait is among the People.”

“We all shape the world,” Ryn said. “But, Keeper, I’m no one important. I might make a good spy, yes, but when I return, I won’t have the kind of impact on the clan that any of the others would.” Ryn didn’t even have a family, and was unlikely to make one. Aside from a few awkward attempts in his teens, Ryn’s romantic encounters had been limited to those times Lavellan met with another clan and he could find partners who did not feel like siblings to him, and those dalliances, while fun, had never led to something lasting. Ryn could have left Lavellan for another clan, but that felt selfish and ungrateful after what they had gone through for him. He said, “If you aren’t comfortable sending Rellana, then choose Ellora. Tal is too cocky, Bron too aggressive. And Elias is…”

“The more you speak, the more firmly my initial opinion is cemented.” Deshanna watched him over her tea, her eyes thoughtful. She said, “Do one thing for me, please. Do not withdraw your name. The clan will continue to discuss it. You’ve told me your thoughts, and I will consider them. But promise me you will abide by the clan’s decision.”

Ryn opened his mouth, then closed it.

He agreed.

\--

“The clan has spent weeks in thoughtful debate, and many of you have come to me personally with your opinions. There is one name that has been put forward more than any other, one individual with the temperament, the curiosity, and the cleverness best suited to serve the clan’s needs in these unusual times, though the clan will miss his bright presence terribly in the days to come. We have gathered what supplies and money the clan can spare, but it will take a quick and clever mind to overcome the dangerous obstacles ahead. Join me, then, in singing farewell to our brother, Ryn. May the gods grant him every favor – and the Dread Wolf forget his name.”


	2. Wycome

Ryn left his clan on a bright morning that bore the first hints of fall coolness in the air, a pregnant expectation of the darkness and cold of coming winter. He had a good skinning knife, a quiver of fresh arrows, and an unknown path stretching before him, with a destination he did not have the experience even to imagine. He had to leave all but his newest book behind, hiding it carefully in his pack between his sewing kit and a paper-wrapped packet of spices and dried meat. His fellow hunters saw him as far as Wycome’s outskirts, and promised to throw the biggest feast the clan had ever known upon his return.

“Don’t take up with the flat-ears,” Tal goaded, digging an elbow into his ears. “If you come back with any bad habits, I promise I’ll beat every one out of you.”

“Ow – that’s no way to speak to your elder.”

“I’ll beat you twice,” she promised, “Just to make sure it sticks!”

Ryn felt almost guilty for the excitement that curled in his belly, the lightness in his toes as he waved his last goodbyes to the clan that had raised him, and turned his head toward his destiny. This was no overnight hunting trip, with help in easy distance should something go wrong. He had never been so far from his people. Even on his most isolated days, he had never been as alone as he would be going forward and he…

He couldn’t wait.

In the farmlands outside Wycome, Ryn took the opportunity to make some last-minute preparations for his journey. He filched unattended clothes from clotheslines, and a loaf of bread from a windowsill. He took some apples from a quiet orchard, and, best of all, a pair of sturdy boots from a pack porch. They were muddy and too big for him, but once he stuffed enough rags in them they were serviceable. In the end, he had for himself the kind of outfit any non-Dalish might wear. He mixed up some mud at a well, and dirtied them up, as if he had come from a distance already, and smeared some across his face as well to hide his vallaslin. Adding a deep-hooded cloak over it all for good measure, Ryn felt rather clever and capable in his disguise.

He wondered, as he entered Wycome, if he was supposed to be having this much fun.

\--

The dockmaster was a filthy, rotund fellow with tobacco stains on his shirt and something green stuck in his teeth. He was _not_ pleased to see an elf approach him with inquiries about booking passage to Ferelden.

“Really, any port will do. I’ll manage,” Ryn told him cheerfully. He had been practicing all afternoon to speak without the tell-tale Dalish inflections in his voice, and thought the accent was pretty good. He smiled, and made sure to keep both hands in the man’s view.

The dockmaster’s office was filthy, cramped, and smelly. The desk was littered with several old mugs, some of which had left rings on his records books. The window needed a good. A mop sat in a dry bucket, and had been leaning against the desk for so long that cobwebs had grown between them. An open door behind the desk led out directly onto the dock, with only a few steps between his chair and the ocean. It was fascinating to Ryn, the permanence of the structure, the filth. He caught himself on the verge of bouncing on his toes, and bit back on some questions he knew would be inappropriate to ask a stranger.

Anyway, it was quickly evident that the dockmaster was not going to be a fan of his. He squinted at Ryn in suspicion, unable to place his accent, unable to make sense of his brash, confident approach, the proud way he held his chin, the assuredness in his shoulders. Ryn did not possess the flinching, subservient attitude he was accustomed to seeing from elves, and nor did he have the mean, hungry look the want prevalent among his kind usually generated.

“You get a pass for leaving the alienage?” he asked.

Ryn tilted his head, considering, then brightened. “I hail from Starkhaven!” he said brightly. “I’m afraid I’ve never stepped foot inside your alienage.” At least the second half of that was pleased. Ryn was pleased with the lie. He pulled out the small purse of coin his people had given him. “I can pay for passage.”

“And how do I know you didn’t steal that?”

Ryn blinked. He looked from his purse to the dockmaster, then back to the purse. He bounced it in his palm a moment, feeling the weight of the precious few coins. The Dalish traded more than they dealt without outright coin. What he held represented something very dearly scraped together. Some of it might have been stolen, to be fair.

“You got your face covered,” the dockmaster said. “You got your face covered, and you don’t care where you make port, and you don’t sound like no Starkhaven. Sounds like a criminal trying to escape justice to me.”

“Has there been instances of criminal activity around here lately?”

The dockmaster spat, the mucus thick and green upon the toe of Ryn’s boot, and Ryn blinked at it, surprised to find himself thankful for _shoes_ , of all things. “You knife ears are always up to something,” the dockmaster said. “What’s to stop me from confiscating the coin and calling the guard?”

Ryn tilted his head. “Wait,” he said. “Are _you_ trying to rob _me_?”

He watched the dockmaster fumble to his feet, and decided it was time to switch tactics. He put his purse away.

“Oh,” Ryn said, “I’m definitely from Starkhaven. Starkhaven’s _circle!_ ” Lunging forward, he grabbed the nearby mop from his bucket, and he pointed the end of it toward the dockmaster meaningfully. “I tried to do this the easy way, but you leave no choice. If you won’t grant passage, I’ll…I’ll turn you into a toad!”

He thrust the broom at the dockmaster, and the dockmaster, white with sudden panic, stumbled back, one step, two. His feet grew tangled with each other in his rush to get away. He fell through the open doorway, out onto the dock, hit the edge – and went over with a splash.

Ryn blinked, surprised that it worked out in quite such a way, and edged toward the back door. “ _Mythal_ – did he die?”

He saw bubbles, then the dockmaster’s head broke the surface. He thrashed violently. “ _Help!”_ he yelled. And, _“Guards_!”

Ryn decided it was best not to stick around. He took a quick glance at the dockmaster’s books, found the ship he needed, and ran for it.

He thought he was _definitely_ not supposed to be having this much fun.

\--

In one of the cabins, Ryn lucked into a troupe of Orlesian circus performers too drunk to find his request to hide among them anything but pure hilarity. By the time the dripping dockmaster had roused Wycome’s city guard to search the ship, Ryn’s inebriated new friends had stashed him inside a costume trunk alongside strings of fake pearls, garishly painted masks, and some very, very exotic-looking underthings.

“Ze dockmaster, he should be thanking ze elf for ze bath!” Ryn shot out, in a truly terrible Orlesian accent, when the guards arrived to search the room. The guards had only a moment to wonder at where the voice had come from before the drunk Orlesian circus performers – half of whom later turned out actually to be drunk _Rivaini_ circus performers – burst into riotous laughter and began catcalling the soaked dockmaster.

“You look so pretty, now you are clean! Here, I will lend you my perfume!”

“That shirt is see-through, monsieur, it is scandalous; I love it!”

“Hardly a master of the docks if he cannot keep himself _on_ the dock, is he?”

Flustered and fuming, the dockmaster said, “He’s not in here. Keep searching.”

Ryn didn’t question why drunken Rivaini circus performers were pretending to be drunken Orlesian circus performers, and they didn’t question why a Dalish elf with little talent for accents needed to seek shelter in their underwear trunk. When the guards were gone and the door was closed, they set up a card game, handed Ryn a flask, and had quiet a good time waiting for the guards to give up and the ship to set sail.

\--

“I am heartbroken our journey together should come to a close so soon.”

The voice came from the narrow cabin bed, where a pair lay twined in each other’s arms. Kumi was a Tal’Vashoth from Rivain, whereas her partner Bernon really was Orlesian, a former valet from Montfort, who had…something, something, The Game. The details were fuzzy, and he liked to keep them that way. Kumi and Bernon had made excellent hosts during the course of time it had taken them to sail from Wycome to Denerim, ready with any number of fun little games with which to pass the time with. Neither had been much for talking, nor for answering Ryn’s endless questions about their homelands and lives, but they had been excellent sports for a little lighthearted diversion. And they were both very bendy.

“You have to say that,” Ryn teased, “Because I haven’t forgotten how much coin you owe me for that last game of dice.”

“That color is far too light for you, darling. Here.”

Through the mirror, Ryn exchanged amused glances with Kumi as Bernon extracted himself from the bed. For an acrobat, Bernon lost all trace of elegance or grace the moment his pants came off. In Ryn’s experience, many men were like that. His left foot tangled in an edge of sheet, he nearly met face to floorboard before making a spectacular recovery.

“This one, I think,” Bernon said once he had safely made it across the room. He took the little makeup pallet from Ryn and replaced it with another. It had been Bernon’s idea, after Ryn had asked after getting an Orlesian mask and wig from the performers. He wanted to make it to the Conclave with as little trouble as possible – and a lone Dalish caught without his clan was too easy a target for many. Ryn had no illusions about that, whatever his interest in exploring a world that didn’t involve the passage of aravels. Yet, as much trouble as a Dalish might have crossing Ferelden’s countryside on his own, he was told, crossing it disguised as an Orlesian would only invite a different flavor of trouble – multiplied the moment the mask came off.

“Different flavors keep things interesting,” Ryn had said cheekily. They still refused him the mask.

Bernon dabbed the makeup sponge across Ryn’s cheeks, exclaiming with dismay when the gold of his vallaslin vanished beneath the thick color. “There it goes!” he said. “Bye bye my lovely. Now you are just like any other elf. I have lost all interest. Pah.”

Ryn turned to examine the work. The makeup was thick, meant for the stage. It would hold up well until he washed his face, but it felt uncomfortable. He pulled his hair back, and frowned at his reflection, examining it from every angle. “It is a strange sight,” he acknowledged. He hadn’t seen his unmarked face in two decades.

“It is madness, what you are doing,” Bernon said. “You should continue to travel with us, instead. That trick with the backflip, where you shoot the arrow? You almost had it yesterday.”

“It would draw crowds,” Kumi said. “Not that stupid trick. You’re never going to get that. But having our very own Dalish. That’s something to put on the posters. Just because your clan threw you out doesn’t mean you should travel alone.” Her long arms twined around Bernon’s waist as he sat on the bed again, and Ryn gave them a smile. He felt guilty that he had lied to them about his true purpose in coming to Ferelden, but owning up to it now, just as the ship was making port, would serve no purpose.

“You’re kind to worry about me,” Ryn said, “But I’ll be all right.”

“You never did tell us where you planned to go. Why not stay with us at least until you decide?”

“I think I would be too restless,” Ryn said. And that was true. As diverting and fun as the circus troupe had proven to be, he was already itching to move on. The road to the Temple of Sacred Ashes would be a long one, and there was much to discover and explore along the way. As much as he would never say it, the truth was that now that he had his taste of freedom, Ryn was beginning to wonder if he could ever be content with following someone else’s direction. “You will think of me kindly, won’t you?”

“No,” Bernon said with a huff. “I shall spit on your name every day and every night.”

Ryn and Kumi exchanged a smile. She nodded toward the makeup he still held.

“Keep that one,” she said. “We’ll get another.”

A knock came at the door, then. They were beginning to disembark. Ryn didn’t wait for his friends to dress, but merely thanked them one more time, and let himself out.

\--

Denerim had been the site of the final battle of the Fifth Blight, where on the roof of Fort Drakon the archdemon was killed by the Hero of Ferelden. According to Ryn’s reading, this Hero had herself been Dalish, hailing from the Sabrae clan, but there were many elves and humans both who doubted such claims. There was not a single statue in her honor that bore her image, and Sabrae itself was unsure if the Hero had indeed been their sister, Lyna, who had indeed left them in the company of a warden.

Ryn thought about that as he stepped off the docks with makeup smeared on his face and his deep hood covering his ears. He wondered if he went to Fort Drakon if he would be able to find anyone who had known her, who had seen her. The Hero of Ferelden had passed through these streets, had breathed this air, had had this dust on her – had she worn boots?

Ryn didn’t have the resources to learn her story, and he didn’t have the time to try, but there was another story he could be a part of.

Aside from his brief journey through Wycome, he had never been in a human city before, only the outskirts. A part of him, desperately, wanted to walk the streets and see if he could pick out what had been there before the Blight, and what had been repaired. He wanted to find the library, and tuck himself away there for weeks. He wanted to go into the shops, and the bars, to talk to the locals and taste the food and hear the stories. He wanted to see if he could get in to meet the king, who had been there, had fought during the Blight, and could answer all his questions.

But none of that was possible – the last, less possible than any of it.

Ryn turned himself toward the city gates, and set himself for the West Road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I overthink things. I hope my thought process for this chapter makes sense. There are a lot of things I second guessed myself about with this one.


	3. South Reach City

Ryn’s journey was disappointingly dull until he reached South Reach. Ryn hadn’t thought such a thing would be possible – he _liked_ spending time alone – but without his books to keep him company or his clan to end the day with, and with a good road and landscape that didn’t much change mile after mile, one day began to drudge into the next.

To keep his mind occupied, Ryn talked to himself, practicing his accents. The Orlesian only seemed to get worse, but his Marcher improved tremendously. After a few days, he could speak it smoothly, with almost none of his usual Dalish inflections whatsoever. He also practiced the circus trick that Kumi had declared him so helpless at – firing an arrow, then immediately upon release flipping backwards, holding a second arrow aimed and ready by the time he landed.

Ryn was bruised and sore and no closer to mastering the trick when the forest around him began to give way to lush rolling farmland and quaint little houses.

Seeing an elven man and his two teenaged daughters tending one of the smaller fields, Ryn decided on impulse to approach. Practicing his Marcher accent, his vallaslin covered by some of the makeup his friends had given him, Ryn offered to help work the field in exchange for dinner, and perhaps permission to sleep in their barn.

The farmer considered him carefully, but without hostility.

“I’ve come over through Wycome,” Ryn told them, which wasn’t exactly untrue. “I’m just passing through.”

The farmer let him stay – a decision which he might have regretted when he ended up having to teach Ryn how to use the farming equipment, taking up more time than he was saving when the archer failed to get the hang of any of it easily.

Eventually, Ryn was demoted, and sent to the house to see if he could help with anything there. The farmer’s wife and his youngest daughter were cooking something they claimed was an ancient elven recipe passed down from the days of Arlathan. Ryn wasn’t familiar with it, and the flavor profile was strange to him – but he could cut the vegetables, anyway, and his stories soon had them laughing.

\--

“Keep your head down, pay your debts, and it’s not a bad place to settle down,” the farmer told Ryn later, as they ate. “I’m always looking for an extra pair of hands, and so are the neighbors.”

Ryn laughed. “Extra, yes. Useful, maybe not.”

“A bright lad can learn,” the farmer said. “The humans don’t bother us too often out here,” he continued. “And I only step foot in an alienage when I take the harvest to market. How many of ours can say that? I tell you, when I’m gone, my girls will get everything, and it will be just as true for them.”

His meaningful look made Ryn choke on his drink. Perhaps he’d been distracted by the exotic novelty of cheese made from _cow’s_ milk, but suddenly the farmer’s informative conversation seemed to bear an uncomfortable resemblance to an actual offer.

The oldest daughter’s scowl told him she had come to the same conclusion.

“I’ll never be a farmer!” piped the middle girl, before the eldest could voice any objections. “I’m going to join the Dalish, and never bow my head to _any_ shem!”

“Do you know how to find them, then?” Ryn asked, more desperate to change the subject than truly curious. He had seen signs from time to time that there were Dalish in the area, and had no doubt he could track down their aravels if he had truly wanted to.

“Sometimes we see their landships through the trees,” the youngest girl said. “And da says sometimes they come to South Reach City to trade.”

“Is that so?” Ryn asked. “ _Ir abelas,_ it seems you have it all figured out already, then!”

The youngest girl looked at him, then burst into laughter.

“You pronounced it wrong!” she said.

\--

The next morning, Ryn set out early – before the farmer could try again to persuade him that he should end his journey settled down in an elven farming community. He left a few coins on the doorstep, and a carved wooden halla he’d fiddled into being on the boat and finished off at night around the campfire. A small thanks, and a token of gratitude for the hospitality.

Ryn had not done much reading on South Reach, but gathered from the farmer and his family that the situation between humans and elves might not be quite as tense there as it was in places like Wycome and Denerim. He made sure his vallaslin were covered, but didn’t bother with his hood.

The closer he came to the city, the more travelers Ryn began to pass on the road. By the time he reached the city gates, somewhere in the late afternoon, it was positively congested – not merely with regular city traffic, but the first of Ryn’s fellow pilgrims: circle mages, apostates, templars, merchant caravans, mercenary companies, more paths than Ryn had time to count converging on the West Road to make their slow, steady way toward Haven.

The city guards were making some attempt at maintaining order, but it was still chaos at the gates. Having much more fun now than he’d had since leaving Denerim, Ryn slipped through the crowd and into the city just as the sun began its descent. He may have nicked a purse or two along the way.

The tension in the city was electric, and Ryn’s resolve to pass through quickly wavered, then broke. He told himself that it was too late to hope to get through the city and make camp on the road tonight. It was as good an excuse as any to try something he’d always wanted to try.

Ryn slipped into a tavern.

The space was already full, and met Ryn’s expectations well enough to please – no, to thrill. Like the taverns in his books, there was even sawdust on the ground. A dwarven minstrel on an overturned apple cart sang of the Stone to a room full of strangers too busy staring each other down to listen to her fine clear voice.

The common room was, indeed, separated into factions, the sides easy to pick out. Many of the templars still wore the armor of their order, despite their departure from the Chantry, much of it dusty and dented from the road. They were a ragged bunch, red eyed, restless, scruffy. Even the ones without armor would have been easy to pick out for what they were, Ryn thought. A hunter knew how to recognize the signs when a predator was nearby.

So, too, did he know the signs of prey.

Few of the mages cowered back from the sharp intensity of the templars’ stares, true. High on the taste of their freedom, and bolstered, in some cases, by the presence of hired mercenaries, many of the apostates were defiant, overly loud, some even openly drunk. One was making a speech to his friends, reciting from a well-worn pamphlet, his voice competing with the minstrel’s to be heard. Most of them still bore the signs of prey.

Nobody seemed to take note that an elf had entered the tavern alone; everyone’s attention was so fixed elsewhere that Ryn wondered if even his vallaslin would have been enough of a curiosity to draw attention his way.

The tables were all taken. Ryn strode up the empty aisle the two factions created down the center of the room, cutting through the middle of the tension to reach the bar.

“I think I’ll have an ale,” Ryn said, jovially.

The barman, a young redheaded human with bright orange peach fuzz on his upper lip, gave a start. He looked at Ryn as if the little archer had just materialized in front of him, then he looked at the glass he had been cleaning as if he had no idea how it had gotten into his hands.

“What?”

Ryn let his smile grow. “An ale,” he repeated. “Please.”

The man hesitated. “Are you…?” he pointed toward the mages, shielding his action with the palm of his other hand. Ryn shook his head – then shook it again when, unlikely as the possibility was, the barman shifted the gesture to inquire if he was with the templars, as well. Both answers seemed to relieve him. He got Ryn a drink.

“We don’t get many elves in here,” he said, “But this one is on the house.”

Ryn was surprised, but accepted the gift, wondering idly if this act of kindness would mean he was expected to lend a hand should things get out of control with the other patrons. Now _that_ would be interesting. The barkeep picked up the cup and the cleaning rag he’d had when Ryn had come in, his eyes shifting nervously from one group to the other.

“ – _oppression of mages stems from the fears of men!”_ the mage who was speaking recited, as the dwarf, warbling with nerves, sang, “ _The Stone embraces them all!”_

“Maker, I don’t want to die,” the barkeep said in a small voice. His hands were shaking. “This lot, they don’t care who gets hurt in this mess. They should just leave decent folks out of it. I just bought this bar. Haven’t made my first payment yet. Me and the missus, this was our dream.”

Ryn wondered if the ‘missus’ was the dwarf. The barkeep didn’t seem to realize he was rambling.

“I thought there was a ceasefire until the Conclave,” Ryn said, taking a drink.

“You think the Divine can protect us from so far away?”

Ryn decided to keep his opinions on what the Divine could or couldn’t do to himself – as well as his thoughts on the coming Conclave. Circle politics was one thing he’d never really studied, and he hadn’t formed an opinion on the situation yet. Instead, he nursed his drink, and he let the barkeep talk, occasionally making encouraging noises.

More templars came in, and serving girls, nervous, hurried to help them. The numbers no longer quiet so even, the mage who had been reading from the pamphlet decided to leave, and with him some of his friends. There was a pair of elves among them, curly-headed twins in drab Circle robes. Ryn watched them in fascination, but was unable to catch either’s eye. Quickly and quietly, they slipped out after the others, their heads down, shoulders rounded, voices low. Finishing his drink, he almost decided to follow them.

“Do you need to let a room for the night?” the barkeep asked, surprising him. “It’s not safe to sleep on the road these days.”

“You aren’t full up?” the offer surprised him.

“Am I supposed to take sides?” the barkeep countered, nodding toward the door as a group of templars slunk out after the mages. “Choose who I want to see set my livelihood aflame before morning? I’m not letting rooms to any of them.”

“But you will to me? An elf?”

“Have to have some coin to show for the day.” He told Ryn the price, and Ryn almost said no.

But Ryn had never slept in a tavern before, much less in a bed of the make that humans liked, and he had always wanted to try it. When the barkeep offered a discount on use of the bath tub, Ryn couldn’t bring himself to refuse. Sure, in winter, sometimes the Dalish would heat water before they washed with it – but to _submerge_ oneself entirely in hot water? That was an extravagant waste of effort that would have offended the entire clan. Ryn couldn’t pass it up.

He paid, and he forgot all about the mages and the templars.

\--

The human bed was discomfortingly high off the ground, the straw mattress lumpy and disappointing.

But the bath. Oh, the bath had been _spectacular_. He stayed in until he pruned.

Ryn set off the next morning bright and early, feeling clean and relaxed and cheerful.

Until he saw the bodies.

A group of mages lay in the road about a mile outside the city. The orator from the night before, and the friends he had left the tavern with, including the elven twins Ryn had noticed. They had been cut down with swords; either by templars, or brigands, or perhaps their hired mercenaries had decided to turn on them. It didn’t matter who or why, only that it had happened. Ryn only stared a moment, frozen in silent shock, before he dropped his bag and rushed forward.

The blood was fresh, there could still be time. Ryn’s knees skidded in it as he checked the bodies. _Dead, dead_. Ryn pulled one twin off the other’s body and found the one below still clinging to life, barely; his brother’s hands had been staunching the blood flow from the wound in his neck. Ryn replaced the hands with his own, and for a moment the other’s eyes opened, slow, sluggish. Ryn cast about for something, anything to help. Another surviving mage who could heal, or a potion – mages carried potions, didn’t they?

Then he saw the progress of aravels, slowly moving their way from the treeline to the road, heading toward the city for trade, as the farmer’s family had told him they sometimes did. He wasn’t familiar with their clan markings, but relief filled him all the same. Their Keeper or First could heal, and there would be herbs and poultices.

“ _Mana! Ma halani!_ ” Ryn called to them as they passed. But they looked down at Ryn and the carnage with impassive eyes. “Please!” Ryn pled. “We can still save him.”

“It is of no concern to us, flat ear,” a hunter said, and continued on her way. The Dalish passed by without another glance his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When trying to find any information I could on South Reach I found a site that was, I think, based off the tabletop game and used it for my inspiration. I can't find it now, so I'm sorry if my interpretation of the city is strange. 
> 
> I'm also sorry if this feels slow getting started. I had thought about jumping right in, when I first started thinking about this, but it's important to me to work through - and let you see - who Ryn was before the Inquisition. I got to explore some of that in The Other Ryn, but that Ryn had also gone through the loss of most of his clan, and this one has not. I appreciate your patience.


	4. The Chant of Light

The mage lived.

Ryn found a potion in the mages’ belongings, and forced it down, and the bleeding stopped, and somehow, impossibly, miraculously, he lived.

He wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t give Ryn a name, wouldn’t look at him or anything around him, save his brother’s body. He was the only one in the group to survive.

The sun climbed higher, and most of the travelers who began to make their way along the road passed them by with averted eyes and a hurried step. Sweat rolled down Ryn’s brow, stinging his eyes, as he struggled to get the bodies out of the road. Someone eventually went back to the city and got the city guard, and they came with a wagon, and then it was all out of Ryn’s hands.

After they were gone, he sat there for a long time at the side of the road, next to the mage, who had retreated even further into himself once his brother had been carted away. Ryn had expected him to go with the body, but instead he had stayed, frozen, his eyes fixed on the bloodied mud, now trampled through by countless boots and carts.

What stunned Ryn was – was the carelessness, the callousness. His only experience with death had been within the structure of his clan. When someone was lost, they were mourned, they were honored, they were celebrated. They weren’t left where they fell, someone else’s responsibility. They weren’t tossed into carts like meat and hauled away like an annoying obligation.

Would Lavellan had passed the mages by, named them someone else’s concern?

It was after noon before Ryn thought to look at the surviving mage again. The other elf jerked violently at the gentle touch of Ryn’s fingers to the back of his hand.

“ _Falon’Din enasal enaste,”_ Ryn said softly. His voice was hoarse from shouting, from the hours he had spent trying to get someone to stop and help. He had never felt so exhausted, so defeated. “I don’t know the prayers of your gods. I hope that mine will suffice.” The mage closed his eyes, and did not answer.

\--

Eventually, sometime in the midafternoon, a merchant caravan agreed begrudgingly to take them on as far as Lothering, for an exorbitant fee. Ryn paid it, because his new companion refused to walk more than a few feet, and Ryn would not leave him behind while he was in such a state. He had little faith in the kind of charity the people of South Reach City would offer, after the day he had had. Anyway, Ryn could always find more coin.

This leg of the journey was less enjoyable for him than even the long boring walk from Denerim had been. Ryn had lost some of his enthusiasm for talking to strangers. Even the fun of his disguise had worn thin in the memory of the cold way that other clan had regarded him.

“ _It is of no concern to us, flat ear.”_

“We aren’t all like that,” Ryn told his new friend the mage, who, after nearly a week, still would not speak – but who would now dutifully follow when asked, and even eat some of the meals placed before him. “Surely we are not. I always thought the unfavorable accounts of the Dalish in books were all due to human bias – but if that clan were the only example of the People I had ever met, surely I would think poorly of us, too.”

The mage watched him, silent, as he rubbed makeup over his vallaslin. Ryn nodded thoughtfully.

“Yes, I know. I can’t know what experiences might have shaped that clan. Not all clans are willing to take outsiders in, it’s true. We’ve always found isolation the safest course for us – and there is the thought that elves who are not Dalish have chosen to desert their roots. I don’t believe that,” he added, consolingly, looking at the mage again. After another moment’s thought, he continued. “My own clan had run-ins with outsiders, too. Particularly before we crossed the Waking Sea. It’s how my parents died. But every outsider we meet cannot be the same as the ones who killed them, can they? Surely my clan would have stopped. It would only have cost a moment to help us.”

Unless after that stop, someone came upon the scene and decided to place the blame for the massacre on the Dalish clan’s heads. Who would refute it? The mage wouldn’t talk – that left only Ryn’s word and he, unfortunately for this scenario, also bore the sin of pointy ears.

The idea of not helping, or leaving the dead where they lay and going about his way was alien and discomforting and unpleasant. It made Ryn furious, and sad, and frustrated. Each tree may exist separately, but still be a part of the greater forest. Didn’t they have a responsibility to one another?

But when he asked himself again if his clan would have stopped, Ryn found that he was uncomfortably unsure of the answer.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Ryn told the mage, and snapped his makeup case shut.

\--

Lothering was a disappointment. The home village where the famed Champion of Kirkwall had spent his adolescence was drab and brown and tiny, and only a small fraction of it had been rebuilt since the devastation brought about upon it by the Blight. The merchant caravan planned to set up shop there to catch pilgrims making their way to Haven. They’d already made up a sign that read “Last Stop Till Redcliffe!” The shop keepers of Lothering were Not Amused.

Exploring the little town, Ryn met a giggly young woman who named herself Peaches. Peaches claimed to have been great friends with the Hawke family, and offered to show Ryn where the home had been, for a price. Evidently, there had been more than a few tourists come through since Varric Tethras’s book had come out. Ryn had been making a game of slowly stealing back what he had paid the merchant caravan for their help, taking a little each day but leaving what he thought a fairer price should have been, so he paid her, and followed her out into the fields, Lothering’s rich, rolling farmland under-tended due to the town’s still-recovering numbers.

He wouldn’t have known the spot without Peaches to show him. Aside from the charred bricks of a fireplace, there was nothing left standing of the home or the barn, and the land was so overgrown that even the foundation was impossible to find. Ryn walked the land a little while, but was unable to picture what the home might have looked like, or how it might have been laid out. Tethras’s book had skimped on details like that.

“I know,” Peaches said, “It’s not what you were expecting. My ma’s going to start selling pies out here. Do you think it will help? Please don’t ask for a refund.”

At Peaches’s urging, Ryn agreed to next visit Lothering’s rebuilt chantry for a service. “It was a miracle,” she told him. “Everything burned out all around the town, but our Andraste was still standing! She’s one of the most beautiful statues you’ll ever see.”

Utterly unfamiliar with the trappings of Andrastian religion, Ryn quickly made an eyesore of himself when he missed the appropriate bows, answered the chant at the wrong time, with the wrong words, and tried to taste the anointing oil.

He gave Peaches his brightest smile. “We do it differently in the Free Marches,” Ryn told her. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but she didn’t seem convinced, which wasn’t fair.

Ryn found the large, _miraculous_ statue of Andraste cold and impersonal, and approached it only at Peaches’s insistence. “If you touch her,” she said, “She will cure whatever ails you!”

“ _Ir abelas,_ my apologies for the intrusion,” Ryn told the statue softly. He had absolutely no urge to pray to her, and when he gently reached out to touch her toe, he found no miracles, only cold hard stone. “My thanks for…not smiting me, I guess.”

Andraste did not appear to be amused. Ryn regarded her thoughtfully for some time, having never gotten this close to such iconography before. Cold and imperious and impressive, she lacked the warmth of the Dalish idols Ryn had grown up with. Hand carved by the clan’s ancestors, some of them ancient, they were like old friends to Ryn. He’d memorized the chips, the marks of toolwork made long before his birth. They were a comfort, packed carefully whenever the clan moved, then sour out again as soon as they made camp. Fen’Harel watching their perimeter, Andruil near their archery targets, Ghilan’nain guarding their Halla, June hanging over their crafts master’s aravel. Wherever the clan went was home, so long as their gods were with them.

Andraste did not have that brightness, that warmth. Ryn wasn’t sure why he had expected her to.

“Perhaps you reside in another statue,” he suggested amiably, and stepped away. He was glad to leave when the service was over, and politely declined a sister’s blessing.

Ryn slipped a few extra coin into Peaches’s purse without her noticing, and said goodbye outside the chantry. After, he wandered Lothering alone a little longer, reluctant to return to the inn and the sad charge waiting for him there, and, for the first time, feeling homesick. His mage companion was a poor substitute for his clan, which could not be faulted, given what he had endured. Ryn wasn’t sure how to help him. He wasn’t even sure that the other elf wanted to go to the Conclave, now that his companions were gone.

His worry turned out to be misplaces. When he did at last return to the inn, it was to find the mage gone. He left a note on Ryn’s bed that said, simply, _thanks._

“Took off with a good chunk of our supplies, and coin to boot,” the merchants told Ryn, when he inquired if anyone had seen which way he had gone. Ryn, knowing that _he_ was responsible for the missing coin, if not the supplies, decided to make himself scarce before he could be named accomplice. He left Lothering before nightfall.

\--

The road became even busier, after Lothering, and absolutely packed through Redcliffe. By some unspoken rule, mages and templars were keeping to separate sides of the road as they traveled, the former to the left and the latter to the right, leaving the middle to carts and uninvited stragglers like Ryn. It felt like some nerve-wracking gamut, carefully walking the tightrope of tension simmering between the two groups.

Here, the ceasefire held, tentatively. They began to pass chantry sisters stationed along the road, offering ministry to the weary travelers, a service Ryn politely and cheerfully declined. Further, Chanters lined the road as well, crying out their catechisms, some so close that their uplifted voices clashed and battled.

“ _Magic was made to serve - !”_

_“ – a well educated child is - !”_

_“There I saw the Black city - !”_

_“ – and Maferath bound his wife’s hands - !”_

Ryn struggled with the urge to join the shouting, to start singing Dalish tales over them, or maybe dirty limericks, just to see their reactions. He behaved himself. Barely.

\--

And then he reached Haven, and he found himself glad, once again, that he had agreed to take on this mission.

Ryn had never seen such a large or diverse press of people – humans and elves and dwarves, Tal’Vashoth mercenaries, Orlesians in their gaudy masks, Antivans, Marchers, Rivaini. Ryn was clearly not the only non-mage to have decided to come to see the outcome of the gathering. Accents he had never heard filled the air, clothing styles he had never dreamed drew his eye. There were some colors that Ryn did not think were supposed to exist, some fashion choices that drew more questions than answers, even other Dalish, less well-disguised than Ryn, darting between people and carts and making people (purposefully?) uncomfortable with their presence. People from all over Thedas had come to witness the Conclave.

It was everything Ryn could have hoped for.

Haven was not a place built for such numbers, though the Temple of Sacred Ashes, looming large above it all, would be able to hold them easily, once things got started. The inn was full up, and homeowners stood in the streets shouting extravagant rates for every spare bedroom, empty barn loft, or square of attic space they could spare. Campsites dotted the snowy hills around the town.

His grin stretched ear-to-ear and his heartbeat quick with excitement, Ryn forgot the troubles and the questions that had been plaguing him since South Reach. Nearly running over a dwarf in a red tunic, Ryn elbowed his way into the crowded tavern and tried to order an ale. It took four tries to get the hassled, overworked barmaid to hear him, and what he got was so watered down it was almost translucent. It didn’t matter. Ryn was having the time of his life.

\--

The tavern was one of the last things he remembered, later, when he woke up in chains.

\--

It was the pain in his arm that woke him.

Everything hurt, a dull, persistent roar, a pounding ache. His head, his knees, his back. It all bled together, throbbing in time to his heartbeat. Pain, regular pain, constant and mortal and unremarkable.

But his arm – that was sharp, burning, icy, a pain so alien, so wrong, so apart from everything else that it was finally the hook to pull him out of the thick heavy darkness that had consumed his world.

There was very little that Ryn was aware of. Strange dreams that slipped his grasp the moment he tried to remember them, the smell of elfroot, someone mumbling in elvhen. And pain. Always, pain.

He swam up out of the darkness, thick, inky tar that clung to him, tried to pull him back. He knew if he let himself sink it would be quiet, and painless. Oblivion. He knew he chose to swim. He clung, painfully, to the light. Then the pain hooked him, and it brought him out.

“ – in and out all day,” someone said. Fingers snapped in front of his face, tried to draw his attention. He tried, fuzzily, to follow it.

“Seeker says to bring him,” someone answered.

Chains on his wrists, heavy, a part of him worried that they would drag him back into the darkness. Dizzy as they hauled him up. Ryn laughed, because he pictured himself sicking up all over their boots. Their fuzzy faces didn’t look amused. He received a lazy backhand for his efforts, and it made his ears ring, made things a little more in focus.

A long hallway. His knees hit stone floor when he was forced down. Cold air on his face. Things continued to clear, slowly, as he waited. The world lost the last of its fuzziness and grew sharp edges.vHe found himself staring at his bound hands.

A gash was ripped deeply into the meat of his palm, the skin around it raw and charred. Ryn thought, a little giddily, that he should get it stitched up, even as he stared without comprehension at the sick green glow that flowed where there should have been blood. It was out of place, unreal. He couldn’t make sense of it.

Ryn flexed his fingers, pleased to find that he could. They were a little numb, tingly, like they’d fallen asleep. Then the glow _cracked_ , and pain shot down his arm like lightning.

The cell door opened.


	5. Cassandra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy game dialogue for the next few chapters. I think I worked it in ok, but if not, I apologize.

The reports said he walked out of the Fade – that he was _handed out_ , by a woman, a woman clothed with the sun. Cassandra had grilled the soldiers who brought him in until they looked like they would wet themselves from fear, and their story did not change.

They said he walked out of the Fade.

Cassandra paced the quarters she had commandeered in Haven’s chantry like a tiger stuck in a cage. Her hands itched for her sword, for the scream of her muscles as she swung it, the satisfying impact as it sunk into a target. That was honest, and easy, and clear. She could understand that. Grasp it, tightly. This was – this was something else.

Deception rankled her. Cassandra’s mind ran in regulated, straight, easy-to-follow paths. She was not stupid, no, not by any means, but she saw no need to complicate matters that did not require complicating. The Chantry and its works were good. Darkspawn were bad. Mages belonged in the Circle, with Templars to keep them safe.

They said he walked out of the Fade, and they believed it.

An afternoon, an instant, and the Temple of Sacred Ashes and all within it had been obliterated, the sky torn open, reality ripped asunder. Everyone who had been in the temple was dead. The Divine – the Divine was dead. And the sole survivor had stepped out of the Fade.

Cassandra picked up the closest thing she could find, and she threw it across the room. The book hit the wall, spine twisting, pages tearing. She stopped, staring at it without seeing.

Deception. The survivor had been brought back unconscious, marked by some strange magic no one had ever seen before. When they cleaned him up, makeup came off his face along with the dirt and soot, revealing _vallaslin_ underneath, golden in color, twining elegant lines across high cheekbones. A Dalish, a disguise, but to what end?

Cassandra walked to the book and picked it up, tried to set it to rights, gave her apologies, silently, to Brother Genetivi. She set it back on the table, and went to sit down.

For days, they hadn’t been sure their prisoner would survive. The magic that marked him was killing him. He was unresponsive. The idea that he should die and leave the mystery unsolved was unbearable. The lives that had been lost deserved answers, deserved justice, and so Cassandra prayed. She prayed for his recovery, prayed for his life. She prayed he was uncooperative, so she could beat the answers out of him. She would very much like to beat the answers out of _somebody._ The Divine – _no_. She couldn’t think of it right now. Anger was easier than grief.

\--

“He is waking,” Leliana said.

Cassandra answered, “Bring him.”

No one objected that he was weak, that he had nearly died. Haven was shaken, and the Chantry was leaderless. The surviving mages had fled, before they could be accused of the tragedy. The surviving templars had followed, and there was war wherever they found one another. They put the prisoner in chains, and they dragged him to be questioned.

Cassandra’s fury spiked when she saw him, still glassy-eyed and woozy, kneeling on the cold stone. He had a pretty face, twisted in pain, the hand marked by magic held as if it were the cause, and he looked up at her approach, squinted, confused. Shook his head, as if trying to clear it. Cassandra would be damned if she would let herself feel sympathy for him. The very idea was insulting. She fought the urge to lash out, to swing her sword and launch his head from his shoulders, to claim the justice she had been denied so many days. They needed answers more than they needed revenge. For now.

She circled him, waiting for him to begin. Waiting for the blubbering, the excuses – or the gloating, the revelation of the master plan. When neither came, she nudged her boot into his spine, and leaned down toward him, let him feel his helplessness, her anger, the weakness of his position.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now,” she said, her hand white knuckled around the hilt of her sword.

He did not answer. Leliana looked at her, shook her head. Cassandra ignored her.

“The Conclave is destroyed,” Cassandra said, circling him. She could feel the fury of the guards in the cell with them, and it fueled her own. “Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.”

Still, no answer.

It was strange, the way the Dalish lad looked at her. He looked much more awake, more alert than he had a moment ago. His brows were drawn, thoughtful, his lips pressed. No excuses, no groveling, no gloating. She could see a mind working behind his eyes.

Lashing out quickly, she grabbed his wrist, gave his marked arm a tug, and was gratified with the pain that answered her.

“Explain _this_ ,” she demanded, and for the first time she saw a reaction.

“I…can’t,” the elf said.

“What do you mean you _can’t_?”

His eyes followed her, thoughtful, intelligent. His voice was reasonable – infuriatingly so. He had almost no traces of the usual Dalish accent.

He said, patiently, “I don’t know what that is, or how it got there.”

“ _You’re lying!”_ Cassandra said. The fury was sharp, immediate, she grabbed him by the shirt. She would tear him limb from limb with her own bare hands. She would –

“We need him, Cassandra.”

She let Leliana ease her off of him, let her press her back, out of reach of him. He hardly seemed to notice his rescue, let alone the danger he had been in, his head bowing, brow creasing.

“I can’t believe it,” he said, softly. “ _All_ those people….dead?”

Leliana kept herself between Cassandra and the elven boy. Cassandra half expected her to smile prettily, to flatter him. It was a tactic that had worked for them before – Cassandra, harsh and mean, Leliana, pleasant and reasonable. Only this time it was not an act; Cassandra really did want to kill him.

And Leliana, instead, regarded him seriously. “Do you remember what happened?” she asked. “How this began?”

He began to shake his head, then stopped, frowning, thoughtful. His eyes shifted as he tried – seemingly genuinely tried – to remember. “I remember running,” he said at last, slowly. “ _Things_ were chasing me. And then, a…a woman?”

“A woman?” Leliana pressed importantly, moving closer, and Cassandra, with distance and a barrier now between her and the prisoner, realized for the first time that she wasn’t the only one struggling to control herself in this situation. Cassandra tried to calm her breathing, tried to reach past her horror and her anger. She looked at the prisoner again, watched him struggle to find words, to locate memories.

“She reached out to me,” he said. “But then…” he stopped, shook his head. He looked up at them with eyes that were clear, and confused – and genuinely _bothered_. He shook his head. Cassandra noticed there was bruising on his cheek that hadn’t been there yesterday; she had not instructed the guards to be gentle when they brought him.

Taking a breath, she put herself between him and Leliana.

“Go to the forward camp, Leliana,” she said. “I will take him to the rift.”

Her anger and horror were still there, still simmering beneath the surface, but now Cassandra had _seen_ him, had forced herself to look at him as he was, and not as her mind imagined him to be. No gloating, no gibbering. He was as confused as they were. However much she wanted to strike him, to shake him, to stab a blade deep and watch him hurt, it wouldn’t give her answers.

He watched her as she unlocked his shackled, and bound his wrists tightly with rope, instead. He winced when she touched the marked hand.

“What _did_ happen?” he asked. He looked at her guilelessly. Cassandra stared back hard, and the expression didn’t waver. If she didn’t know – if it didn’t line up so perfectly – she would believe him innocent. He had been the only one to survive. He had been in disguise. He had walked out of the Fade.

Yet his confusion seemed genuine.

Cassandra said, “It will be easier to show you.”

\--

Her words echoed, reverberating in his ears like the careless footfall of boots splashing through blood-muddied puddles. _Everyone is dead_. Ryn had forgotten his arm. His chest ached with a new kind of hurt.

Some hunters enjoyed the hunt, enjoyed the kill, the power. Even in Lavellan, there would occasionally be a youth who looked for trouble, who wanted a fight. But Ryn, shouldered with the knowledge of the debt he would never be able to repay, had taken very seriously to the tenants of _Vir Tanadhal_ even as a child. _Fly straight and do not waver. Bend but never break. Receive the gifts of the hunt with mindfulness._ Life was a sacred thing. Ryn had taken it before – to keep his clan fed, and in defense of his clan, both. Neither was ever done lightly, or happily.

Ryn remembered the press of people when he reached Haven. The busy streets, the cacophony of voices – none of which sounded like his own. Innumerable lives, experiences, personalities, beliefs, _stories_ that were different from his own.

He remembered that press, lining up to enter the Temple of Sacred Ashes to witness the discussions. The merchants selling snacks. The Chantry sisters trying to keep things moving. Former circle mages passing out copies of a manifesto, former templars brushing off armor they had last taken off months ago. Parents with children come to witness historical proceedings. Young men, old women. Young women, old men. Humans, dwarves, elves, towering, horned Tal’Vashoth.

_Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you._

The light burned his eyes when he stepped outside. The thing in his hand gave an electric shock. Ryn was still unsteady, weak, the cobwebs still slowly clearing from his mind. He lifted his bound hands to shield his eyes from the brightness. And then he saw it.

The wound in the heavens stretched for miles above the carcass of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Virulent green, vibrant and vicious, the same as the throbbing mark in his hand. Was there even a stone still standing? From here, he couldn’t see. The world was wounded. All those lives, gone in an instant. Everything hurt.

“We call it _The Breach_ ,” his captor said, and he could hear her impotent anger, as well as her grief. Her frustration was raw and honest and he _appreciated_ it, appreciated that _someone_ was angry, even as he continued to struggle to grasp the numbers, the permanence, the destruction. He pulled his eyes away and found that her gaze, too, had latched onto the wound in the heavens. “It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It is not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave. Unless we act, the Breach my grow until it swallows the world.”

Ryn opened his mouth to ask a question, but instead what came out was a scream. His knees hit the ground before he was aware of it, or anything beyond the sudden searing pain that lanced up from his hand with a tremendous _crack_ , arcing lightning, white-hot fire, the burn of frostbite, there was no name, no descriptor for the pain, for it was nothing that nature had ever endured someone to endure.

Just before it broke him, it ended, leaving a lingering ache, a soreness behind. Ryn found himself on his knees in the grass, the light shining from his hand bright and threatening, his captor kneeling before him, one steadying hand on his shoulder.

“Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads – and it is killing you,” she said. Calmly. Matter-of-fact. Ryn stared at her until she did something that might have been an attempt at a smile that was aborted before it could begin. “It may be the key to stopping this,” she said, “But there isn’t much time.”

Ryn was panting, out of breath. If he tried to stand, he would be sick. He clutched his arm close to himself as he could, his wrists still bound, chaffing against the ropes from his struggled. “You say it _may_ be the key?” he asked, his voice rough, pained. He didn’t sound like himself. “To doing what?”

“Closing the Breach,” she answered, as if it was obvious. “Whether that’s possible is something we shall discover shortly. It is our only chance, however. And yours.”

“You still think I did this?” he demanded, as his hand throbbed, but thankfully did not crack again. He laughed, a little hysterical. “To _myself_?”

She hesitated. Later, he would appreciate that her answer was honest. “Not intentionally,” she said. “ _Something_ clearly went wrong.”

“And if I’m not responsible?” he pressed.

“Someone is, and you are our only suspect.” Ryn wanted to laugh, but was afraid he would never stop. Was this how someone descended into madness? The pain in his arm was dulling again to an ache, fingers settling into that tingling, half-asleep feeling. She was watching him very closely. “You wish to prove your innocence?” she asked. “This is the only way.”

Ryn flexed his fingers, tried to shake out his hand. He reminded himself that he was an elf alone among a people to whom his word would mean less than nothing. That he could not do the first bit of magic, that he was just a simple hunter, who kept to himself and did his best to do no harm didn’t matter, wouldn’t matter, if they decided they needed someone to punish. His eyes drifted again over the wounded sky. Everyone in the Conclave dead, and the breach was growing. How many more lives did that put at peril? Ryn knew there was nothing he could do to help, nothing he could contribute that they couldn’t get from dozens of others.

But he was the one being asked. He took a deep breath.

“I understand,” Ryn said. “I’ll do…what I can. Whatever it takes.”

She looked at him, silent, for a long moment, then helped him to his feet without a word.

Ryn’s prison had been within Haven’s chantry. As Cassandra led him through the town’s streets, he was struck by how empty they were, how quiet. Almost everyone had been at the Conclave. Of those who remained, many gathered now, watching his progression with hard, hostile faces.

“They have decided your guilt,” Cassandra told him. “They need it.”

Ryn didn’t have an answer for that.

Outside Haven, Cassandra stopped, and she turned to face him again. There was struggle in her hard, unforgiving face, but she drew her knife, and she freed his hands. She said, “There will be a trial. I can promise no more.”


	6. The Crew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More game dialogue ahead. Pacing is always such a concern with this kind of fic. I want to include all the small important in-between moments, but it's also important to show how the well-known parts went and the impact they had. The big plot points will therefore have lots of game details, while the smaller ones can be brushed past more easily. 
> 
> Anyway, my point is, I hope it flows all right and isn't too intrusive because there's not a way to avoid it without jumping around too fast and also missing the emotional and developmental impacts those moments cause.

Signs of the devastation were more numerous the further they got from Haven. The road that Ryn had cheerfully walked to the Temple of Sacred Ashes only days ago, one among a throng of many winding their way to first day of talks at the Conclave, was now littered with debris, abandoned carts, wounded soldiers. Ryn wasn’t sure how many days had passed, how long he had been unconscious. There were few signs much attempt had yet been made to recover the dead or clean up the mess – what he saw, instead, were signs of battle.

The next time the mark in his hand cracked, Cassandra helped him back to his feet, and held him firmly by the shoulders until the pain and nausea and dizziness passed.

“The pulses are coming faster now,” she told him, and, absurdly, he thought it was an attempt to comfort him. When he first woke there had been only hatred and blind fury in her eyes. Now he saw compassion.

They spoke, a little, as they ran. Ryn was caught up in the disaster and tragedy of it all, in the question of what he could possibly contribute to make any difference at all. Cassandra had made mention of demons, but he didn’t think anything of it until they were on them.

They fell, incredibly, from the sky, hurtling with all the force of a cannonball, destroying the bridge they had been crossing and sending them both to the frozen stream below. Ryn landed badly, the ice cracking threateningly beneath him, slipping as he tried to rise. Cassandra did better at finding her feet, drawing her sword with a metallic sound as she threw herself at the demons. Struggling to keep his feet, Ryn cast around for something, anything he could do to help. A crate of supplies from the bridge had fallen over, spilling its contents. He didn’t think as his hands closed over a bow, as he quickly lashed the quiver to his hip. His numb tingling fingers could still draw the string.

He had never fought demons, but it was the least strange thing that had happened to him today, and his aim was true. Ryn found his rhythm, the familiar skill like second nature to him.

Cassandra turned her sword on him when it was over.

“Drop your weapon!” she commanded, advancing. “ _Now_.”

Ryn looked to the ragged remains where the demons had been, and the virulent streaks across the sky as more fell. He lifted his hand in surrender. “All right,” he assured her, slowly, lowing the bow toward the ground, though he struggled to convince his fingers to release it. “Have it your way.”

She jerked as if surprised, and then relented. Reluctantly, thoughtfully, relented. “Wait,” she said, and he saw her hesitance as she sheathed her sword. “I cannot protect you, and I cannot expect you to be defenseless. I – should remember you agreed to come willingly.”

Ryn could hear what the words cost her, how little she wanted to say them. She knew it was right, fair, reasonable, no matter how much she would rather leave him helpless, or cut him down. Ryn thought of a dozen things he could say in response, none of them the least bit helpful. He kept his mouth shut.

\--

Further down the road, they found others. Soldiers, fighting demons, alongside a dwarf with a crossbow, and an elven apostate in rough homespun. The demons had pulled themselves from the Fade through a tear in reality, smaller than the Breach above, an undulating green rift that made Ryn’s hand pulse and _ache_.

“Quickly,” the other elf said. “Before more come through!” And he grabbed Ryn’s wrist and thrust his hand toward the rift and –

Ryn didn’t know of a way to explain what happened, only that something did. The mark on his hand lined up with the open rift, green energy stretched toward green energy. There was a strain, a pressure – and then, for the first time, a sense of release. The rift closed. The pain in his hand was suddenly less, as if something that had been building up had been let go. Sometimes, the children of his clan would blow up a pig’s bladder, and toss it around as a toy – but too much air, and the bladder would burst. It felt like that – like air had been released, moments before the pressure built too much. The relief was instant. Ryn stared at the other elf for a moment, and then at his hand. The green glow was less potent than it had been, softer, less alarming.

“What did you do?” he asked, and the other man smiled.

“ _I_ did nothing,” he said, pleased, and haughty in his pleasure. “The credit is yours.”

Ryn flexed his hand again. It seemed less stiff, more feeling in his fingers. The glow winked at him, pulsed. He wondered if the pressure would begin to grow again, and how long it would take to reach the painful state it had been in before. “At least this is good for something,” he murmured.

“Whatever magic opened the breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand,” the elf said. “I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake – and it seems I was correct.”

“Meaning it could also close the Breach itself,” Cassandra said, with a mixture of eagerness and relief hinged with desperation.

The elf looked as if he was trying not to laugh at her when he answered, “Possibly.” The sunlight reflecting off the snow made his bald pate gleam. Ryn couldn’t shake the feeling that the man was enjoying himself, despite all the evidence why he should not, even as he gave Ryn a succinct once over, and ducked his head as if in humility. “It seems you hold the key to our salvation.”

“Good to know!” the dwarf piped up. He was sturdily built and beardless, with a magnificent display of hair across his chest. “Here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever.” He, too, gave Ryn the once-over; were there less going on, Ryn would be getting tired of the attention. “Varric Tethras,” the dwarf said. “Rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.”

Ryn nearly choked, certain he had misheard. “A-are you with the Chantry, or…?” Surely he couldn’t be _the_ Varric Tethras.

The other elf chuckled. “Was that a serious question?”

It earned a rueful look from the dwarf. “Technically, I’m a prisoner,” he said. “Just like you.”

Cassandra did not find any of it the least bit amusing. “I brought you here to tell your story to the Divine,” she said. “Clearly, that is no longer necessary.”

“Yes, here I am. Lucky for you, considering current events.”

Ryn, for all his solitary habits, was good at talking to people. He _liked_ talking to people. But for the moment, he found himself at an uncharacteristic loss for words. He had so many questions, and now was not the time. He wanted to thank the dwarf for his writing, for sharing his experiences in Kirkwall, for making the adventure come alive.

Instead, what came out of his mouth was, “That’s…a nice crossbow you have there.”

Varric Tethras – _the_ Varric Tethras – flashed a grin, and glanced over his shoulder fondly. “Isn’t she? Bianca and I have been through a lot together.”

“You named your crossbow Bianca?” Ryn knew that. It was in the book. But somehow, he hadn’t connected that a detail like that might be real, that it hadn’t been creative flavor added in later.

“She’ll be great company in the valley,” Varric Tethras assured him.

\--

The elf was named Solas, and Varric Tethras was _the_ Varric Tethras, and Cassandra seemed to regret coming across either of them when they did.

Solas, Ryn learned, was at least partially responsible for the fact Ryn had survived…whatever it was that had happened to him. He had experience in unusual magic, and was somehow able to keep the mark from growing so fast that it consumed him, to slow – or maybe even stop – its growth.

“You are Dalish, but clearly away from the rest of your clan,” Solas said, later, as they made their way down the icy path to the forward camp. Ryn reached up quickly, remembering, suddenly, his attempts at disguise. Someone must have washed it away while he was unconscious. “Did they send you here?”

“What do you know of the Dalish?” It was a tricky question, a tricky position. Ryn glanced carefully at Cassandra out of the corner of his eye, wondering if Solas’s bringing it up would cause issues, later. He had already been accused of responsibility for whatever it was that had happened. It seemed to run in line with his current luck to be accused of more.

“I have wandered many roads in my time, and crossed paths with your people on more than one occasion,” Solas answered. Ryn shook his head.

“We are both of the same people, Solas,” he said, as gently as he could.

“The Dalish I met felt…differently on the subject.”

“Can’t you elves just play nice for once?” Varric sighed.

There wasn’t opportunity to ask him about his books. Ryn didn’t want to put him on the spot or make him uncomfortable with the others around and a world-ending task to see to, and so Ryn stayed quiet, except when his mark _cracked_ and the dwarf inquired how he was doing. Then he did his best to swallow down the pain, to give his companions a smile. There were more important things to worry about.

Ice and snow crunched under their boots. The frigid air burned their lungs. The Free Marches were warm for most of the year; the cold was an unfamiliar challenge, and yet Ryn barely noticed it. The further they travelled, the more signs of destruction they passed. Debris, bodies.

At the forward camp, the redhaired woman from his interrogation was arguing with a man in Chantry robes. As they approached, Ryn and his companions were drawn into it, the man’s small eyes fixing on Ryn in narrowed suspicion, hostility, even hate.

“As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal to Val Royeaux for execution.”

Ryn wondered, absurdly, and a little dizzily, how much of Grand Royeaux a prisoner bound for execution would be able to see before he died. What a shame it would be to limit his experience to a dungeon cell. Did they execute their prisoners publicly, like they did in the books? If so, maybe he could forego the blindfold when they hung him.

He almost laughed – wanted to laugh – but then Cassandra was there, to his utter astonishment, interjecting herself between him and the Chantry man, her hackles up, her pale face flush with anger so that the scar on her cheek stood out in stark relief.

“ _Order me_?” she demanded. “You are a glorified clerk. A bureaucrat!”

His eyes barrowed further. He tossed his head, and placed a palm, hard, upon the table before him. “And you,” he said, “Are a thug. But a thug who supposedly serves the Chantry!” his other hand made a negligent gesture, fingers walking, indicating that his will should be done. The red haired woman looked at Cassandra and back at the man, folding her hands slowly before herself.

“We serve the most holy, Chancellor, as you well know,” she said soothingly.

The Chancellor thew up his hands. “Justinia is dead!” he said, and Ryn could see his fear behind his bluster. He tilted his head, thinking, as the man continued on about the need to elect a new Divine.

Ryn, perhaps foolishly, was unable to keep himself from interjecting. “So none of you is actually in charge here,” he realized. He earned three sets of glares for his troubles, which was…discomforting. Then again, he was a dead man walking, wasn’t he?

“You,” said the Chancellor, slowly, “ _Killed_ everyone who was in charge!” His finger jabbed, pointedly, at Ryn in accusation, then he slammed his fist on the table once more, and swiveled his head toward Cassandra, who was radiating such rage that a part of Ryn was surprised the snow didn’t melt around her feet. “Call a retreat, Seeker. Our position here is hopeless.”

She shook her head. Her entire body was taut, tight with control, even if there was anger in her voice when she answered. “We can stop this before it’s too late,” she said.

“How?” the Chancellor challenged. “You won’t survive long enough to reach the temple, even with all your soldiers.”

Ryn eased back as they continued to argue. He looked at the others, found Varric studiously avoiding looking at any of them, tugging on his gloves as if they were the most fascinating thing for ten miles. Ryn got the distinct impression he was, meanwhile, cataloguing every word. Solas, on the other hand, watched it all with rapt fascination, his eyes bright, a kind of lean hunger behind his eyes. Ryn might have found it amusing to watch the humans squabble, himself, if he wasn’t to be the scapegoat of this tragedy, destined for a mockery of a trial and a hangman’s noose, one way or another. His hand _cracked_ , a smaller one this time. He was almost getting used to it.

He realized, after a moment, that Cassandra had spoken to him. _How do_ you _think we should proceed?_

It surprised him, caught him off guard. Suddenly, all eyes were on him again, expectant. He wracked his brain for a moment, trying to remember what they had been arguing about. The Chancellor wanted them to retreat, which was something Ryn was certain not a single one of them were willing to do, if there was even the slightest chance that the mark on his hand might end this – whatever it was. Cassandra wanted to take soldiers and cut straight through to what remained of the temple. The other woman wanted them to utilize a mountain path where an entire squad had earlier gone missing.

“You’re asking me what _I_ think?” Ryn asked, just to be sure he hadn’t entirely lost his mind.

“You have the mark,” Solas pointed out, quietly, as if he could have forgotten.

“And you are the one we must keep alive,” Cassandra added. “Since we cannot agree on our own…”

If Ryn started laughing, he would fall to madness and hysteria, never to emerge again. He shook his head. “Use the mountain path,” he heard himself say. It was a very Dalish answer. Cutting through the fast way was more dangerous, risked more lives. And people had gone missing that way. It was unlikely but – but perhaps they could still be helped. “Work _together_ ,” Ryn told them, hardly believing he had to say it at all. “You know what’s at stake.”

Cassandra frowned, but she nodded. As far as she was concerned, the matter was settled.

“Leliana,” she said, “Bring everyone left in the valley. Everyone.”

The Chancellor’s face was read, and for a moment it seemed he might try to stop them, throw himself in their way, block it bodily. But his hands clenched and his jaw set and he remained where he was.

“On your head be the consequences, Seeker,” he said, darkly.


	7. Pride

The good news, Ryn thought, a little deliriously, was that they found the missing soldiers.

“That’s right, Bianca, baby, you know what I like!”

“Ugh!”

Ryn was a hunter. He was not battle trained. He could defend his clan when the occasional small scuffle with bandits or unfriendly townsfolk cropped up, and he could reliably hit a moving target nine times out of ten. He was a decent shot. But he wasn’t a soldier – and rolling out of one’s deathbed to fight demons was not something he had ever been trained for, though he was getting plenty of experience in the matter today.

The rifts he had closed had helped take some of the pain and pressure out of his marked hand, but his fingers were still somewhat numb, still clumsy and wrong. He did his best to push past it, to narrow his focus to the target and shoot, arrow after arrow, to hit his mark and not his companions, and when the last demon fell, he didn’t think twice before striding forward and lifting his hand and –

“Sealed, as before,” Solas said. Ryn was battling exhaustion with every step; the mage didn’t even sound winded. He smiled at Ryn as if he were having a grand time. Ryn had to cede that he would be having fun, too, if he wasn’t the one with the weird glowing hand, missing memories, and the promise of the Chantry’s wrath on his head. Other than that, everything was fine. “You are becoming quite proficient at this.”

“Let’s hope it works on the big one,” Varric Tethras said.

The soldiers – the soldiers were grateful, past exhausted, bloodied, barely able to keep their feet. They had lost some of their number, and the rest had been fighting for hours. “I don’t think we could have held out for much longer,” Ryn heard one confess, and he had to admit that he agreed. Just by his inexpert sight he could see how little they had left to give.

He was surprised, then, when Cassandra put the praise for their salvation on his shoulders.

“Thank our prisoner, Lieutenant,” she said without hesitation. The look she gave Ryn was speculative. “He insisted we come this way.”

“The prisoner?” the lieutenant echoed, surprised. “Then, you…?”

Ryn, bent double, struggling to catch his breath, tried to pull himself together. He pulled himself up, gave it a moment, as if there could be someone else they were referring to, but, no, the soldiers were looking at him. He tried to smile, but he couldn’t laugh off the fact they had been a hairsbreadth away from disaster. “It was worth saving you if we could,” he said, which was the truth.

The lieutenant reached forward, and grasped his forearm tightly. She made sure to hold eye contact as she said, “Then you have my sincere gratitude.”

Ryn didn’t know how to answer that. He didn’t know that he deserved such praise. He had hoped to find the soldiers, yes. And that played into the decision to go this route. But he had also chosen it because to his Dalish ears a roundabout route was always going to be preferable to a bold one. He tried, once again, to smile, but it was weak. Cassandra rescued him, placing a hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder and drawing her a step away. “The way into the valley behind is clear for the moment,” she was saying. “Go while you still can.”

Ryn took his time gathering what arrows he could recover, watching the retreating soldiers until they disappeared into the mountain.

\--

Ryn had thought that the signs of destruction they had encountered along the way had been bad. He didn’t understand his failure to grasp the devastation until they reached the place where the Temple of Sacred Ashes had once stood.

It was as if the earth itself have bucked and boiled. Craggy outcroppings jutted violently from the ground where none had stood before, swallowing sections of building that had not been destroyed in the blast, glittering with veins of green, invasive, much like the mark on his hand. What once had been the entrance hall to the Temple now had nothing to show there had ever been anything there, save for an absurd square of wall where a lantern yet, hung, still lit.

Unconscious of it, Ryn had picked up his pace. Accustomed to the unpredictable footing of the forest, he flowed over debris and loose rocks, upheaved sections of flooring, crumbled remnants of walls. It was warmer here, then hot. Sweat rolled down his spine under his thick travelling coat. It clung to his brow, darkened his hair.

When he stopped, it was sudden, hard. Because for a moment what he saw made him wonder how he could possibly take another step.

“This is where you walked out of the Fade,” Cassandra said, from somewhere behind him. “Where our soldiers found you.”

Ryn’s inner sense of direction could not provide for him where they would have been within the Temple. One of the reception halls? For the first time there were – bodies. Not like those he had seen along the road – people killed by demons, or from fallout from the blast. These were…these had been charred where they stood, frozen in a moment of extended agony that snuffed the light of their lives where they stood. It had been – it had been a bad way to go. Ryn could tell, because they told him. Anguish painted the twisted bodies, the open jaws, the sockets that stared heavenward with what had once been eyes. They were not skeletal. There was still…meat…charred and blackened and smoking. Ryn had to force himself to take one step. Then another.

“They say a woman was in the Rift behind you,” Cassandra said. His ears were ringing; Ryn barely heard her. “No one knows who she was.”

He was supposed to have an answer for that. In his horror, he didn’t realize it. Ryn continued, as if he knew where to go. Further in, the blast had been worst, and he saw the first of the skeletons – all else burned away, leaving only white, clean, gleaming bone. It would have been better, if there weren’t so much of it.

There were stairs, intact, leading down to an inner section of the Temple. Ryn approached cautiously. There was no roof, only a – an enclosed pit. The rift in its center was the largest he had seen, and, worse, unlike the others it appeared almost to be crystalline, solid and very real, very much a part of the world beyond the Fade. The Breach waited, hungry, directly above it.

“ – a long way up,” he heard Varric say, and he looked, and saw the dwarf, pale, staring heavenward. Saw the defeated droop of his shoulders, the pinch in the skin between his eyebrows.

There was movement from the corner of his eye, the sound of footfall.

“You’re here. Thank the Maker!”

“Leliana, have your men take up positions around the temple,” Cassandra said, without preamble. She was not surprised by their arrival. In fact, she seemed solid as a rock while the rest of them gaped, unable to comprehend the magnanimity of what they were seeing. She had seen it before. And, Ryn realized without surprise, she was strong enough to put horror away for the sake up the things that must be done. Ryn felt her gaze when it fell on him. She moved to stand before him, to put herself between him and the rift, the Breach, the whole tragic mess. She waited for him to meet her eyes. “This is your chance to end this,” she told him, seriously, and Ryn forced himself to pull back the parts of himself that had begun to spiral, to fracture under the kind of horror that no one was meant to withstand. Cassandra had done it. As had Leliana, and her soldiers.

He had to give more of himself than he felt he was capable of. He had to push past limitations that he had never had cause or will to explore, to match the courage he saw already around him. He owed it to them, and to the ones who had suffered, and the ones who would come to suffer, later.

“Are you ready?” Cassandra asked him, holding his gaze hard, and he knew she was not asking him, but telling him. There was no choice here, no alternative, no option. For better or for worse, he was the one with the mark. He was the one holding the only thing that came close to hope, literally in the palm of his hand.

Ryn lifted his chin. He tried to make his voice sound strong. How much were they giving, to stand here right now? How much was it costing? He owed them better than to indulge in anything less than everything he could give.

“I’ll try,” Ryn said. His voice didn’t waver. Good. He tried to force his mind to work, to follow paths it did not want to follow. Indulging in horror would have been easier than studying the Breach, considering how he could connect it with the mark. “But I don’t know if I can reach that, much less close it.” The confession sounded conversational, open to suggestion. That was fine.

“This rift was the first, and it is the key,” Solas told him. He tore his eyes from it after a long moment, and Ryn couldn’t begin to understand what it was he saw in his expression. “Seal it,” he said, “And perhaps we seal the Breach.”

“Let’s find a way down,” Cassandra said. “And be careful.”

\--

 _Now is the hour of our victory,_ the voice said, and the Dalish paused, his head tilting attentively, and he continued on his way. There was no hesitation in him, no second thoughts. His footing sure and confident, he forged their path through the ruins of the Temple, and did not look back.

Almost everyone she had witnessed see the devastation for the first time had been affected by it. Some had stopped to sick up. Some had fallen to their knees, empty. A few had cried.

The Dalish was one who had pressed forward, expression set, and private, and solemn.

 _“I’ll try_ ,” he had said. That was what mattered. That was the only option they had left. She had feared what it would mean, if she had to force him.

_Bring forth the sacrifice._

Hours ago, Cassandra had not expected to find herself grateful for her prisoner. She remembered her anger, could taste it, still, upon her tongue. She had prayed he would fight, so she could have the excuse to hit someone. She had pictured dragging him bodily to the breach.

Now he led the way, and she followed, and was grateful.

“You know this is _red lyrium_ , Seeker,” Varric said, low, urgent, skirting a violently red outcropping growing from what had once been a wall. Sweat matted her hair, rolled down her chin, yet she felt a chill all the same. She could only assure him that she saw it. “What’s it _doing_ here?” he pressed. She didn’t have an answer she liked.

_Keep the sacrifice still._

_Someone, help me!_

Cassandra had not drawn this close to the rift below the Break; no one had. She had been relieved she was not the only one hearing the voice, booming yet intimate, sinister and educated, filling her ear, yet surrounding her, as well. Now she stumbled, and almost fell. It was the dwarf who caught her arm, who kept her from spilling to her backside among the jagged rocks.

“That – that is Divine Justinia’s voice!” she said.

The Dalish didn’t stop, barely paused. Checking the distance, he vaulted himself over a wall in a single smooth motion, and landed in the pit.

_Someone, help me!_

_What’s going on here?_

Cassandra followed, as she had been doing all day. They had asked the Dalish to make a decision, and he took up leadership of their little band without further question, and she had let him. She found him before the rift, examining his hand. His face was blank, expressionless, confused, even. She had not seen the glow grow so bright, so violent, without also hearing him scream. She approached slowly.

“That was your voice,” she said. “Most Holy called out to you. But…”

She thought, later, that the vision must have taken over all of them at once. Or perhaps it came within a certain proximity, trapping them while it ran its course. It had the quality of a dream, dark, difficult to understand. Cassandra found herself straining to see, to penetrate the shadows. She saw the Divine, bound. She saw the Dalish, running to her aid.

_What’s going on here?_

_Run while you can! Warn them!_

_We have an intruder._

Shadows and shadows and more shadows. Cassandra tried to swim through them. Tried to reach her prisoner, to grasp hold of him. In that moment, it didn’t matter if it was the real one, or the one in the vision.

_Slay the elf._

It ended as abruptly as it had started, staggering her. Cassandra found she had not moved. None of them had. She stared at the Dalish’s narrow back.

“You _were_ there!” she said. “Who attacked? And the Divine, is she…? Was that vision true? What are we seeing?” Questions on questions. Desperation surged. She grabbed for the Dalish, turned him to face her. She would shake the answers out of him. She would –

“I don’t remember!” he said, breaking her hold. He looked as lost as she felt. Somehow, that was worse than any other answer he could have given. Cassandra dropped her hand.

“Echoes of what happened here,” said Solas, softly, thoughtfully. “The Fade bleeds into this place.” He turned his head, pulling his eyes from the Breach as Cassandra approached. She needed to put space between herself and her prisoner, before she did something she knew she would regret. Solas said, “The rift is not sealed, but it is closed, albeit temporarily. I believe that with the mark, the rift can be opened, and then sealed properly and safely.”

He was addressing the Dalish, not her. He had lost the strange, jaunty enjoyment that seemed to have previously permeated the day. Even when he had been watching over the Dalish, pouring his magic into stopping the spread of the mark, it had seemed as if he were enjoying himself. Now he seemed deadly serious.

“Opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side,” he said.

Cassandra was the first to realize what it was he was saying. “That means demons,” she said, raising her voice. She looked, making sure the soldiers heard her. “Stand ready!” she commanded, and when she was satisfied, she looked to the Dalish, and gave him a nod. “Now!” she said. “Do it.”

He flexed his hand and turned back to the rift, drew closer, reaching.

A crack like thunder, and the rift split open. As the huge, hulking figure of a Pride demon filled the pit, Cassandra shoved down everything but duty, and honor, and rage, and she drew her sword.


	8. Haven

Ryn could hear the crowd outside growing restless, and knew it was only a matter of time before someone started looking for him.

_At once, she said!_

This time, when Ryn woke, there had been no dungeon cell, no chains, and, importantly, remarkably little pain.

He had been in a bed, in a snug little cabin. The mattress was stuffed with fresh hay, the quilt old, but well-patched and thick, and someone had dressed him in a clean, soft tunic and pants. What small wounds he had received fighting the pride demon had been treated with salves and elfroot poultices not dissimilar from what he might have found among his clan, by the smell on him. A warm fire crackled merrily in the hearth.

And his hand, while still marked and strange and uncomfortable, felt remarkably close to normal, comparatively.

 _At once, she said!_ The serving girl’s frightened words rang in his ears.

The first thing Ryn had discovered, once he was brave enough to try his feet, was that there was no trace of his belongings anywhere in the room. His pack, his supplies – his tent, his food, his money – even his bow was gone, his quiver, his arrows. The clothes he wore were not his own, and there was not so much as a butter knife or even a winter coat within the cabin.

Ryn slipped out the window.

Caution led him to take a roundabout way behind the cabins, avoiding the crowd that seemed to have gathered in the streets of Haven, but his progress was halted when he reached the town gates and found them shut tight, under guard by several soldiers.

Backtracking before they noticed him, Ryn found a sheltered place, and he tried to climb the wall. The cold bit through his thin clothing, and his unfamiliar boots made the task awkward. He was discouraged, but not entirely unsurprised, when he reached the top of the wall and found a patrol on the other side.

There was no time to drop; they saw him almost immediately. A soldier in front waved at him. Ryn, absurdly, waved back.

“Seeker Pentaghast wants to see you in the Chantry, m’lord,” the soldier called.

Ryn gave something like a laugh. “I, ah, took the wrong turn. _Ir_ _abelas_.” He dropped back before the conversation could continue.

Ryn’s exit strategy began to fracture and fall apart. Finding and stealing the needed gear and supplies from the people of Haven was pointless if he couldn’t manage the act of actually _leaving_ Haven in the first place. Moreover…moreover, it seemed cruel, stealing from people who had just lost so much. How many of Haven’s citizens had been in the temple when disaster struck? Surely, with so many gone, there was now excess to be spared – but how was he to know that what he took didn’t belong to, or couldn’t be used by, someone with greater need?

\--

**_Patient Observations_ **

_\- Day Three –_

_Less thrashing. Some response to stimulus._

_Vitals seem solid._

_Two attempts so far by locals to break into the Chantry to kill my patient._

_All this work to save his life, and will they just execute him?_

_Will inform Lady Cassandra I expect him to wake before the morn._

Having talked himself out of scrounging for supplies, Ryn went looking for information, instead, and found not nearly as much as he would have liked. Sitting at a desk in a cabin that was not the one he had woken in, Ryn read over the physician’s notes again and again, and listened to the crowd mulling around outside, and pressed the heels of his hands hard to his eyes as he tried to think. He could see the green flare of the mark through the thin skin of his eyelids. Ryn groaned.

“He can seal those, though – the Herald of Andraste,” someone outside was saying.

Ryn had almost died, more than once. His hand had almost killed him. The citizens of Haven had almost killed him. The Chantry _wanted_ to kill him. The very healer who had saved him had wanted to call the templars in, _just in case._

He had no way out of Haven, and no supplies if he did get out.

He had a town full of people and many, many armed soldiers who knew his face.

He had a weird, unpredictable _thing_ in his hand that _might still_ kill him.

And there was a Seeker waiting to see him in the Chantry.

Ryn sat for a long time staring at the notes he had gathered. He moved his hands, slowly, pulling back his hair and binding it back, away from his face. His vallaslin were clear and visible, he knew. Some blamed him for what had occurred here. How many Dalish clans would be razed searching for him if he escaped?

His legs felt weak as he pushed up from the desk.

It seemed the entire surviving populace of Haven was waiting in the street outside the cabins. Ryn could feel their eyes as he emerged, hear their whispers. He remembered what Cassandra had told him before they went to the ruins of the Temple – _they have decided your guilt; they need it_. He braced himself for the worst.

“It’s him!” someone said. “That’s the Herald of Andraste!”

They…fell back. Ryn didn’t have it left in him to question it, to wonder why no one tried to stop him, or harm him. Why a hesitant hand reached out to brush his sleeve. Why no one spat on him, or threw rotting fruit, or tried to attack. Someone knelt. So did a few more. Ryn walked through Haven’s streets, and reached the Chantry unmolested. They let him in.

\--

“Chain him,” Chancellor Roderick commanded, the moment the Dalish walked through the door. The Dalish stopped, and merely looked at him, and Roderick rocked forward on the balls of his feet, and gestured to a nearby guard as if the lad had outright threatened him. “I want him prepared for travel to the capital for trial.”

“Disregard that,” Cassandra told the soldier. “And leave us.” What they needed to discuss didn’t need overhearing by unproven ears.

Roderick flushed red with anger. “You walk a dangerous line, Seeker,” he warned her. Cassandra waved him off.

“The Breach is stable, but it is still a threat,” she said. “I will not ignore it.”

The Dalish stepped forward, concern creasing his brow. “So, I am still a suspect, even after what we did?”

“You absolutely are.”

Cassandra fixed Chancellor Roderick with the full force of her glare. “No,” she said, absolutely certain. “He is not.”

She could see how much her words surprised the Dalish, and felt a spasm of shame for it, for the anger she had felt while he suffered, fighting for his life. She had wanted someone to blame, and he had been the most convenient target. She would explain it to him later. She would apologize. She would hate it, but she would do it. It couldn’t be harder than what he had done for them.

“Someone was behind the explosion at the Conclave,” Leliana said pointedly. “Someone Most Holy did not expect. Perhaps they died with the others – or have allies who yet live.”

Roderick drew back, offended. “ _I_ am a suspect?” he demanded.

“You,” Leliana agreed, “And many others.”

“But not the prisoner?”

“I heard the voices in the Temple,” Cassandra said. “The Divine called to him for help.”

“So his survival – that _thing_ on his hand – all coincidence?”

“Providence,” of that, Cassandra was sure. She clung to it, tightly. “The Maker sent him to us in our darkest hour.”

The object of their argument jerked as if he had been struck. He took a step closer like he didn’t even realize he was doing it. “You realize I’m an elf,” he said. “A _Dalish_ elf.”

“I have not forgotten.” Cassandra sounded colder than she meant to. She did not want to have this conversation with Roderick here, sewing dissent. She wanted to talk to the Dalish about this gently, privately. She wanted to present to him the evidence in a way he would understand, show him the line of thought that had led her to the conclusions that had set her on this path. That wasn’t going to happen now. “No matter what you are, or what you believe, you are exactly what we needed when we needed it,” she said. The Dalish paled.

“The Breach remains,” Leliana told him. “Your mark is our only hope of closing it.”

Roderick was not finished with his protests. “This is _not_ for you to decide!”

“You know what this is, Chancellor?” Cassandra demanded, as she slammed the book she had carried in onto the table. “It is a writ from the Divine, granting us the authority to act. As of this moment, I declare the Inquisition reborn.” Nothing was going the way she planned it, but she felt a thrill, all the same, saying the words. A surge of faith, of surety. It reflected in her voice, strengthened her words. “We will close the Breach, we will find those responsible, and we will restore order. With or without your approval.” She had what she needed. She had _who_ she needed. It was the hand of the Maker at work, of that she was confident.

“This is the Divine’s directive,” Leliana said, directly to the Dalish, cutting to the quick, as she was so skilled to do. “Rebuild the Inquisition of old. Find those who will stand against the chaos. We aren’t ready. We have no leader, no numbers, and now no Chantry support. But we have no choice: we must act now. With you at our side.”

He had questions. Good questions, thoughtful questions. He sat himself, slowly, at the table, and he asked them, and he listened to their answers.

_What is the Inquisition of old? Aren’t you still part of the Chantry? How is this any different than starting a holy war?_

When he finished with his questions, he grew quiet, staring at his hands upon the table for a long moment before speaking again. “What if I refuse?” he asked at last, softly. There was a vulnerability to the question, an acknowledgement of how weak his position was. They were asking a lot, and they had not treated him kindly. They could throw him back in chains at a word. Turn him over to the Chantry for execution. They could _make_ him do as they pleased. Cassandra had no way to prove to him that they wouldn’t.

“You can go if you wish,” Leliana told him.

“But you should know,” Cassandra said, “That while some believe you chosen, many others still think you guilty. The Inquisition can only protect you if you are with us.” She didn’t mean it as a threat. She worried, after, that it sounded like one.

The elf bent his head, and was silent for a small eternity. Waiting must have worn on Leliana, too, for after a brief glance at Cassandra, she pressed him, gently. “We can also help you,” she pointed out. Cassandra grasped onto her point and held to it, hard.

“It will not be easy if you stay,” she said, “But you cannot pretend this has not changed you.”

Still, he was silent. His thumb moved, slowly, over the mark in his palm. When he finally spoke, he chose his words carefully. “If you’re…truly trying to restore order…”

“That is the plan,” Leliana assured him.

He nodded, but he didn’t continue. Cassandra reached out to pat his arm, or squeeze his shoulder. She wasn’t sure which. The gesture was not comfortable or natural for her, and she stopped before ever actually touching him. “Help us fix this before it’s too late,” she said.

He took a breath, and he nodded. He extended a hand her way.

“My name is Ryn,” he said.

\--

The cabins owners were dead, and Haven’s citizens had donated it to him for his use.

His supplies were returned to him, now that he no longer needed them. The gates were unbarred.

Ryn didn’t know what he was doing.

It was remarkable, how little he was recognized within Haven’s walls, once he’d donned proper gear and was no longer being led around in chains. The quartermaster told him where to get cleaning supplies. The barkeep got him a drink and didn’t notice there was a fly in it. It would have been reassuring, being a faceless elf again, if he could have been in any other situation.

But –

But if Ryn could help, he wanted to. Soldiers were already hard at work, recovering the bodies from the Temple. The families of those who could be identified were contacted – but almost none could be identified. There were mothers, fathers, lovers, siblings who would never know what had happened to their loved ones. Their pyres lit the horizon at all hours. They had died horrifically, and there was no one to mourn them.

Ryn could close the rifts. He could stop the flow of demons swarming in from the Fade, help keep more people from being hurt. By supporting, by working with the Inquisition, perhaps they could even find the answers to what had happened. Stop it from happening again.

He was terrified, and yet – and yet he was hopeful, too.

“Does it trouble you?” Cassandra asked, indicating the mark. Ryn hadn’t even realized he was messing with it. He flexed his fingers one more time, and gave the Seeker a smile.

“I just wish I knew what it was,” he said, which was not what she asked, but also was not a lie. “Or how I got it.” The pain was less. Manageable. He could mostly feel his fingers. They weren’t clumsy enough to compromise their use. That was what mattered.

“We will find out,” she promised. “What’s important is that your mark is now stable, as is the Breach. You’ve given us time, and Solas believes a second attempt might succeed – provided the mark has more power. The same level of power used to open the Breach in the first place. That is not easy to come by.”

Ryn felt his lips twitch into something more genuine. He gave her a grin. “Well,” he said. “What harm could there be in powering up something we barely understand?”

He was surprised when she nearly smiled back. “Hold on to that sense of humor,” she advised.

\--

The first order of business, according to the Inquisition’s advisors, would be to find a way to close the Breach for good – and for that they would need allies. There was a difference in opinion as to whether their organization should choose to tie itself to the templar order or the rebel mages, though either group would likely be able to provide the support they would need for such a momentous task. To gain the assistance of either, however, they needed legitimacy. A reputation.

“Who told you to do this?” Cassandra asked, when she met Ryn at Haven’s gates.

He looked better out of his disguise than he had in it. The leathers that had been commissioned for him fit him far better than the bits and pieces he’d stolen from human farmhouses on his way from wherever he had come from, and while he had been disappointed to learn he still had to wear boots, he seemed pleased with the fact that the ones provided did not have to be stuffed with rags to fit. It had only been a few days, but he seemed to have wholly recovered from his deathbed, the color returned to his cheeks, the green on his hand not quite so violently bright.

“Do what?” he asked her, his purple eyes wide, his pretty face the very picture of innocence.

Irritated, Cassandra gestured to the group coming in behind him, a dozen or so of the surviving residents, each pulling a sled of what seemed to be a mixture of fresh kills, herbs, and supplies scavenged from the camps that dotted the land outside Haven. Ryn looked at them as if he had forgotten they were there.

“Oh,” he said. “Was anyone missed?”

“Not exactly,” Cassandra bit out. “But you have been gone all day.”

“The quartermaster asked me to find a logging stand,” Ryn said. “And while I was out, I started to think about the people left in Haven. I asked for volunteers to help me gather supplies and check the camps to see if any of the ones no longer in use had anything we can salvage.”

“Why?” she pressed.

“You wanted to leave tomorrow, didn’t you? For the Crossroads? With the soldiers we’re taking, and the travel time, Haven will be short on people for at least a week or two. I thought we should make sure to leave plenty of supplies in our absence, just in case.” He tilted his head, regarding her. “ _Ir abelas._ Was I wrong not to first ask permission?”

“I’m not sure I quite like your tone,” Cassandra said.

“My – tone?”

“As if you are thinking about laughing.”

“I promise,” Ryn said, “I will not laugh.”

“As if you are trying to feel out your boundaries here.”

“I am not accustomed to your ways.”

“Oh, stop looking at me with your face.”

“I cannot very well look at you with my backside.”

Cassandra wanted to throw something at him. Instead she crossed her arms. “It was…good for you to think about,” she said, stiffly, relenting. “And no, I do not think you needed ask permission. Particularly since you used volunteers, and did not attempt to command soldiers to help you.”

He did chuckle, at that. “Soldiers, following at Dalish elf? You would throw me back in chains for trying.”

“Well,” she said. “Perhaps not that. It was good to think of. What are you doing now?”

“When I finish this interrogation?” his tone was light. He was teasing her. Cassandra felt heat climb across her face, and glared at him sternly. He ducked his head to hide his grin. “I will help clean the kills, and if no one here knows how to start curing them, I will help with that, too.”

“We are leaving first thing tomorrow morning.”

“I thought after that, I might go to the tavern.”

“You will be unfit for travel.”

“Ah, do you think so?”

“You must set a good example. As Andraste’s chosen – “

He laughed, again, at that. Cassandra sharpened her glare.

“You have broken your promise twice now. You said you would not laugh.”

Ryn watched the last of the sleds pass through Haven’s gates, and then motioned for Cassandra to walk with him, following them inside. “I suppose it wouldn’t help to say I wasn’t laughing at you?”

“To imply you were laughing at Andraste, instead? No.”

“This doesn’t seem as if the conversation is going in the right direction. Ah, I know – are you busy? Chaperone me, and you can tell me when I behave inappropriately.” He smiled at her, and she did not like it.

“I am – unsure I understand your meaning.”

“Well, I’ve never been Andraste’s Chosen before. I don’t have the first idea how to behave.”

She stopped, still unsure whether or not she was being teased, and levelled a look at him. “Do not stay up all night drinking,” she said. “We are leaving tomorrow. I expect you to be capable of riding.”

He stopped too. After a moment, he inclined his head. “I’ve never ridden a horse,” he said, passing her. “Should be an interesting experience.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've had most of this written up for a long time and forgot I never finished the chapter. I'm still trying to figure out how I want to write this fic, but I was missing Ryn today, so here you go.


End file.
